Elder Scrolls VI - Wish List @ PC Gamer

The Elder Scrolls Online may be getting all of the attention right now, but for many of us, the soul of the series will always be Bethesda's sprawling, open-world single-player games. It seems likely that we'll see a new Fallout before we see a new numbered titled in the beloved fantasy RPG series, but that doesn't mean we can't start to dream, right?We've seen the series make dramatic leaps over the last decade, to the point that the textures and environments we once fawned over in Oblivion now seem laughably out of date compared to the snowcapped peaks of Skyrim, and enough time has passed to allow for better, bigger roleplaying experiences. But can the next installment deliver?

Surprisingly good list. I actually agree with almost all of it except cooperative play, especially the call for it being a true PC game. The console interfaces in a game from Bethesda are an insult, as was the nonsensical claim that the reason was that 80% of their sales were from the consoles when in reality the PC was still the largest plarform though smaller than PS3 and XBOX combined.

Obvously I agree about the mouse and keyboard suggestion. Though I think Bethesda is likely to make the UI gamepad-centric on every game from now on as they know modders will always rush in to make a good PC UI. Too bad because I think a PC UI taken into consideration early on would be much better than any modded solution.

— If I'm right but there is no wife around to acknowledge it, am I still right?

IMO this list missed one of the biggest problems with Skyrim, that being the poor quality of the game. It's a bug-ridden sloppy mess and they made the very little effort to fix the game even as sales are still strong! I don't understand why the community isn't more upset with them.

From the outside it seems like they need to hire more/better programmers for one. At first, the PC version didn't even have the most basic of compile flags set which is embarrassing for Bethesda. They had problems with the PS3 version and I put the blame on them for that too. It just screams to me loud and clear that their post-release support has been near the bottom in the industry. This is also true for Fallout 3 and Obliv. All three of the games are now abandonware.

I've learned not to expect anything much anymore. My #1 wishlist is simply for bethesda to provide the resources for modders and stop getting in their way by putting in stuff that makes it harder to mod. (I'm looking at the slow script processing, no real clean saving, and making combat modding a pita, of Skyrim, among others)

I'm not against a co-op option actually. But not before they actually fix stuff that needs it first. I don't even use companions because the ai is too dumb for it. Adding another human player would just make the dumb ai even more glaring.

Cooperative would be very nice - but I can appreciate the anti-socials fretting about other people having that choice.

Mostly, I want expanded mechanics and I'd love a much more elaborate stealth/thievery system.

I prefer the new spell system - but it could use a lot more variety.

Balance was always a joke - and I'd really like for them to implement an "old-school" mode with zero level scaling.

I'd like crafting to be vastly expanded as well, and I don't want character power progression involved with that. I'd love the ability to create and customize more stuff, including furniture and even a complete house. But more customization is key.

I'd like MUCH fewer dungeons with MUCH more variety. Say, perhaps 50 dungeons instead of hundreds - and all of them completely unique and most of them very large.

If they're going to go with randomized quests again, I'd like for them to be more convincing as something that could actually be a real handcrafted quest.

I'd like for them to work harder on the crime/reputation system. Make it a real challenge to be a good thief or a criminal in general - and make it much less exploitable and gamey.

I'd like for them to not rely on the community for a good user interface.

I'd like to see a new engine that streams content properly - and which doesn't have the severe flaws of the "Creation" engine.

I'd like to see water and oceans play a larger part - including the ability to sail ships and much more elaborate underwater exploration.

I'd like puzzles and riddles that take more than a 5-year old to solve them.

I'd like to see a fast travel system that's less extreme and less convenient - with more interactivity and immersion (like an actual transportation system). Make it cost something and use a wayshrine system similar to ESO. It's simply too convenient and I don't have the discipline to ignore it at all times.

I'd like to see magic and stealth work together.

I'd like to see more tactical melee combat - with a more deliberate pace ala Dark Souls.

I'd like to see materials mean more than simplistic damage increases. I'd like elven weapons to be visibly faster and with a higher crit rate, and dwarven weapons hit really hard - and their armors be heavier and less flexible.

I'd like to see the enchantment system expanded with many more prefixes and suffixes.

I'd like to see the unique artifacts be much more powerful - but also much harder to find, which would work in a non-scaled environment.

I would like to see a much more balanced and dynamic economy - where your actions directly influenced supply/demand - and where gold is much more useful and much harder to come by.

I'd like the ability to take over and build cities - and eventually run them and setup your command and administration staff.

I'd like a more elaborate hunting system - akin to Gothic 3/Witcher and beyond. Especially in the early levels - I'd love for skinning and taking trophies being a bigger deal.

I'd like the main story to be 2-3 times larger and less "mainstream" explosion based - as in more subtle and with more C&C.

I'd like each of the Guild questlines be around 30-40 hours - instead of ~10 hours.

I'd like to see exclusivity in the guilds again - and I'd like every rank to be much more meaningful within each guild - and I'd like for the last few ranks to be excessively hard to achieve.

I'd like to see more survivalist aspects ala Fallout NV and the mods for Skyrim - but make them optional and implement hunting and such to match these features.

My wishlist:
1. Remove levelscaling except for bosses
2. Remove endless respawns
3. Outsource bards (to malukah for example) instead of using Bethesda staff to sing songs, outsource PC UI to SkyUI designers
4. Remove grind/fetch so-called radiant schemes or mark them in a way we know those are not worth our time, keep them away from regular questchains so we don't see crap design like Skyrim thieves guild
5. Patch the bloody logic (variables) quest bugs instead of patching crashes so rare that 0.000001% of players will see those
6. Set 0 lbs on all nonremovable from inventory (quest) items and then there is no need to patch possible bugs on those
7. Patch the chainsaw sound coming from vibrating books that are made of paper, stop dead spiders dance, stop waving tails of dead animals and animalbased creatures
8. Make all passages wider by default so Lydia can't block those or set followers default behavior to keep away at least 2 feet from you
9. Don't go Sims DLC, and I'm not talking about number of DLC but about quality and content (crap design of house&kids DLC)

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
Obvously I agree about the mouse and keyboard suggestion. Though I think Bethesda is likely to make the UI gamepad-centric on every game from now on as they know modders will always rush in to make a good PC UI. Too bad because I think a PC UI taken into consideration early on would be much better than any modded solution.

Skyrim UI wasn't gamepad-centric. They were trying to emulate the iPod touch-wheel system. Todd wanted to be "cool" over being functional.

I was very disappointed by the non interactive travel, i really thought they would have picked up both the wish from fans + the influence from widely popular RDR and GTA.

No interest in co-op, not that i would mind, but the whole game would have to be based around it, it would take up development time that i'd rather see spent on other things.

More varied environments absolutely, it was also disappointing, or that the variation that is there is just rather dull.. For example i liked the frozen marshes, but that area is explored in 2 minutes. The game seems far too driven by the concept ideas, some which doesnt work out as well in-game as on paper/in artwork.. Oblivion was terrible here as well (and i guess FO3 too), you would have thought they'd learn from that, but no..

And yes, maybe its time for them to move away completely from this really, really buggy engine. It's certainly lame of them to say it's a completely different engine and still it has the same bugs as for example FO3 and Oblivion. The terrible looking Z-Fighting is just one example. It's too bad mods could suffer greatly if they do this, the tools we have (nifskope etc) are really powerful.

Originally Posted by vurt
And yes, maybe its time for them to move away completely from this really, really buggy engine. It's certainly lame of them to say it's a completely different engine and still it has the same bugs as for example FO3 and Oblivion. The terrible looking Z-Fighting is just one example. It's too bad mods could suffer greatly if they do this, the tools we have (nifskope etc) are really powerful.

Definitely. Although a new engine would not only demand an investment of time and money on their part but also an overhaul to the plethora of modder's tools, it's past time Bethesda got away from Gamebryo. It's plain buggy… And whoever heard of a save system designed to make a sandbox world more unstable the longer you explore?!

I doubt they will do so, however. Why change things when you can continue patching, repatching, tweaking, or simply ignoring issues altogether to still wind up with 20 million units sold?

Originally Posted by Drithius
I doubt they will do so, however. Why change things when you can continue patching, repatching, tweaking, or simply ignoring issues altogether to still wind up with 20 million units sold?

Exactly, and every man, woman and their dog bought Skyrim despite its shortcomings and samey design features following previous iterations that people did not like.

Originally Posted by joxer
9. Don't go Sims DLC, and I'm not talking about number of DLC but about quality and content (crap design of house&kids DLC)

A lot good and some unreasonable entries, but this is the one I have to go with HELL NO.

Once I heard about Hearthfire, I freely admit that I was kinda looking forward to the house building but the adoption system? "I'll probably won't use that…"
I actually remember saving in front of the orphanage, adopting a kid and quickly reload the last save, just to get the stupid achievement.

Mods changed that. More precisely, 2 cute Khajiit kids changed that - "At least you can try it out". That trying out became more. A lot more.
They gave me reason to head home beyond the point of dropping loot. I caught myself following those two brats for hours, just to see how they live and what they are doing when I'm not around. They gave me roleplaying and immersion value and a reason to go on.
So much so, that I made a little video series about them called My Skyrim Khajiit and Argonian kids.

Some may derogatory consider Hearthfire a Sims in Skyrim - for me it put in more rolepalying then any other DLC did.

After you buy those keys, install origin client and activate keys there. Once you do that and start playing Sims 3, if you're telling the truth about your kidlurking enjoyment, you'll never return to Skyrim.

Oh you want some nonhuman fantasy race kids? There is an addon that allows you to have a vampire child, a werewolf child, hell even a fairy. In that case, besides Generations you need an expansion called Supernatural:http://www.go2arena.com/the-sims-3-s…ey-global.html

DLC here, DLC there. Sims 3 is not really RPG although does have certain RPG elements inside, Skyrim should not be Sims game and on your HELL NO, I answer with HELL YES.